■/.>W'fW^':^mW'''f<^'yffyy^yy^^ 


IBRARY 

NIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

AN  DIEGO 


oC.^ 


XX 


^^^  /fof. 


Smtvsoll  Icttttres  on  ^mmortalitj). 


IMMORTALITY  AND  THE  NEW  THEODICY.  By 
George  A.  Gordon,  D.  D.     i6mo,  Ji.oo.     1896. 

HUMAN  IMMORTALITY.  Two  supposed  Objections 
to  the  Doctrine.  By  Professor  William  James. 
i6mo,  $1.00.     1897. 

DIONYSOS  AND  IMMORTALITY :  The  Greek  Faith 
in  Immortality  as  affected  by  tlie  rise  of  Individualism. 
By  President  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler.   i6mo,  ^i.oo. 


THE  CONCEPTION  OF  IMMORTALITY.  By  Pro- 
fessor JosiAH  RoYCE.     i6mo,  Ji.oo.     1899. 

LIFE  EVERLASTING.  By  John  Fiske,  LL.D.  i6mo, 
$1.00,  nei.     Postage,  7  cents,     igoo. 

SCIENCE  AND  IMMORTALITY.  By  William  Osler, 
M.  D.,  LL.D.  i6mo,  85  cents,  «(•/.  Postage  6 cents. 
1904. 

THE  ENDLESS  LIFE.  By  Samuel  M.  Crothers, 
D.  D.     i6mo,  75  cents,  «fA     Postage  6  cents.     1905. 

INDIVIDUALITY  AND  IMMORTALITY.  By  Professor 
WiLHELM  OsTWALD.  i6mo,  75  Cents,  fte/.  Postage 
6  cents.     1906. 

BUDDHISM  AND  IMMORTALITY.     By  William  S. 

BiGELow,    M.  D.      i6mo,    75    cents,  «?/.      Postage 

6  cents      1908. 
IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     By   G.    Lowes 

Dickinson,   Fellow  of   King's  College,  Cambridge. 

i6mo,  75  cents,  net.    Postage  6  cents.     1909. 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


IS    IMMORTALITY 
DESIRABLE? 


.tEtif  3ngtt6oU  Jifttmr,  laos 


IS  IMMORTALITY 
DESIRABLE  ? 


BY 


G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 

Author  of  "  Letters  of  a  Chinese  Official,''''  "  The  Greek  View 

of  Life,'"  "  The  Meaning  of  Good,''  'M  Modern 

Symposium,''^  "  justice  and  Liberty'''' 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

(Cbe  BibewiOE  ^xtii  Cambti&oc 
1909 


COPYRIGHT,    1909,    BY   G,    LOWES  DICKINSON 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  May  iqoq 


THE    INGERSOLL  LECTURESHIP 


Extract  from  the  will  of  Miss  Caroline  Haskell  Ingersoll, 

who  died  in  Kecne.  County  of  Cheshire,  New 

Hampshire,  Jan.  26,  i8gs. 

First.  In  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  my  late 
beloved  father,  George  Goldthwait  Ingersoll,  as 
declared  by  him  in  his  last  will  and  testament,  I 
give  and  bequeath  to  Harvard  University  in  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  where  my  late  father  was  graduated, 
and  which  he  always  held  in  love  and  honor,  the 
sum  of  Five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  as  a  fund  for 
the  establishment  of  a  Lectureship  on  a  plan  some- 
what similar  to  that  of  the  Dudleian  lecture,  that  is 
—  one  lecture  to  be  delivered  each  year,  on  any  con- 
venient day  between  the  last  day  of  May  and  the 
first  day  of  December,  on  this  subject,  "the  Im- 
mortality of  Man,"  said  lecture  not  to  form  a  part 
of  the  usual  college  course,  nor  to  be  delivered  by 
any  Professor  or  Tutor  as  part  of  his  usual  routine 
of  instruction,  though  any  such  Professor  or  Tutor 
may  be  appointed  to  such  service.  The  choice  of 
said  lecturer  is  not  to  be  limited  to  any  one  religious 
denomination,  nor  to  any  one  profession,  but  may 
be  that  of  either  clergyman  or  layman,  the  appoint- 
ment to  take  place  at  least  six  months  before  the 
delivery  of  said  lecture.  The  above  sum  to  be 
safely  invested  and  three  fourths  of  the  annual  in- 
terest thereof  to  be  paid  to  the  lecturer  for  his 
services  and  the  remaining  fourth  to  be  expended 
in  the  publishment  and  gratuitous  distribution  of 
the  lecture,  a  copy  of  which  is  always  to  be  fur- 
nished by  the  lecturer  for  such  purpose.  The  same 
lecture  to  be  named  and  known  as  "  the  Ingersoll 
lecture  on  the  Immortality  of  Man." 


IS  IMMORTALITY 
DESIRABLE? 

IT  is  with  a  certain  sense  of  temer- 
ity that  I  stand  before  you  to- 
night, a  sense  inspired  not  only 
by  the  place  and  the  audience,  but  by 
the  subject  on  which  I  am  to  speak. 

I  am  succeeding  in  a  famous  uni- 
versity many  distinguished  men;  and 
for  that  my  only  apology  is  the  invi- 
tation with  which  I  was  honored.  But 
also,  I  am  to  speak  on  the  Immortality ' 
of  Man;  and  in  defence  of  that  audac- 
ity what  can  I  say  ?  Surely,  it  may  be 
thought,  a  man  must  be  very  bold  or 
very  shameless  who  is  prepared  to  dis- 
course on  such  a  theme.  For  either,  it 


2     IS  IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

would  seem,  he  must  profess  to  know 
what  the  wisest  have  admitted  to  be 
beyond  their  ken;  or  he  must  be  a 
charlatan,  ready  to  talk  about  matters 
of  which  he  knows  nothing.  These  are 
hard  alternatives;  but  they  do  not, 
I  hope,  exhaust  the  possibilities.  If  I 
venture  to  address  you  on  this  great 
subject,  it  is  precisely  because  I  do 
not  suppose  that  you  regard  me  as  a 
preacher  or  a  prophet.  I  am  here,  as 
I  conceive,  to  make  one  speech  in  a 
debate  which  proceeds  from  century 
to  century,  which  has  been  perpetu- 
ally adjourned  and  never  concluded. 
For  the  Immortality  of  Man  is  one 
of  those  great  open  questions  which  to 
my  mind  are  of  all  the  most  worth  dis- 
cussing, even  though  they  may  never 
be  resolved. 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     3 

But,  in  saying  that,  I  have  already, 
no  doubt,  said  what  some  of  you  will 
dispute;  for  to  some  of  you,  in  all 
probability,  the  question  is  not  open, 
but  closed.  There  may  be  those  here 
who  are  convinced  on  grounds  of  re- 
vealed religion  that  Man  is  immortal. 
To  these  I  do  not  speak,  for  anything 
I  could  say  must  be  an  irrelevance  or 
an  impertinence.  There  may  be  others 
who  are  equally  assured,  on  grounds 
of  science,  that  man  is  mortal.  Against 
them  I  shall  not  argue  at  length  to- 
day ;  but  I  must  state  briefly  that  I 
do  not  agree  with  them,  and  why.^ 

The  scientific  denial  of  immortality 
is  based  upon  the  admitted  fact  of  the 
connection  between  mind  and  brain  ; 
whence  it  is  assumed  that  the  death  of 
the  brain  must  involve  the  death  of 


4    IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

that,  whatever  it  be,  which  has  been 
called  the  soul.  This  may  indeed  be 
true;  but  it  is  not  necessarily  or  obvi- 
ously true ;  it  does  not  follow  logically 
from  the  fact  of  the  connection.  For, 
as  Professor  James  has  ably  set  forth 
in  his  lecture  on  "Human  Immor- 
tality," that  fact  may  imply  not  the 
production,  but  the  transmission  of 
mind  by  brain.  The  soul,  as  Plato 
thought,  may  be  capable  of  existing 
without  the  body,  though  it  be  im- 
prisoned in  it  as  in  a  tomb.  It  looks 
out,  we  might  suppose,  through  the 
windows  of  the  senses;  and  its  vision 
is  obscured  or  distorted  by  every  im- 
perfection of  the  glass.  "  If  a  man  is 
shut  up  in  a  house,"  Dr.  McTaggart 
has  remarked,  "the  transparency  of 
the  windows  is  an  essential  condition 


IS    IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     5 

of  his  seeing  the  sky.  But,"  he  wittily 
adds,  "it  would  not  be  prudent  to 
infer  that  if  he  walked  out  of  the  house 
he  could  not  see  the  sky,  because  there 
was  no  longer  any  glass  through  which 
he  might  see  it."  ^  My  point  is,  that  the 
only  fact  we  have  is  the  connection,  in 
our  present  experience,  of  body  and 
mind.  That  the  soul  therefore  dies  with 
the  brain  is  an  inference,  and  quite  pos- 
sibly a  mistaken  one.  Ifto  some  minds 
it  seems  inevitable,  that  may  be  as 
much  due  to  a  defect  of  their  imagina- 
tion as  to  a  superiority  of  their  judg- 
ment. To  infer  wisely  in  such  matters, 
one  must  be  a  poet  as  well  as  a  man 
of  science;  and  for  my  own  part  I 
would  rather  trust  the  intuitions  of 
Goethe''  or  of  Browning  than  the  ratio- 
cination of  Spencer  or  of  Haeckel.  For 


6     IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

in  making  his  hypotheses  a  man  is  de- 
termined, whether  he  knows  it  or  no, 
by  his  habitual  sense  of  what  is  pos- 
sible; and  in  this  curious  universe  so 
many  things  are  possible  which  seem 
incredible  to  men  who  have  never  been 
astonished!  Does  it  seem  to  you  in- 
credible that  the  body  should  be  the 
habitation,  not  the  creator,  of  the  soul; 
that  this  should  continue  to  live  when 
that  has  died?  I  can  only  reply  in  the 
words  of  your  own  poet:  — 

Is  it  wonderful  that  I  should  be  immortal  as  every 
one  is  immortal  ? 

I  know  it  is  wonderful  —  but  my  eyesight  is  equally 
wonderful,  and  how  I  was  conceived  in 
my  mother's  womb  is  equally  wonderful ; 

And  passed  from  a  babe,  in  the  creeping  trance 
of  a  couple  of  summers  and  winters,  to 
articulate  and  walk.  All  this  is  equally 
wonderful. 


IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     7 

And  that  my  soul  embraces  you  this  hour,  and 
we  affect  each  other,  without  ever  seeing 
each  other  and  never  perhaps  to  see  each 
other,  is  every  bit  as  wonderful. 

And  that  I  can  think  such  thoughts  as  these  is  just 
as  wonderful. 

And  that  I  can  remind  you,  and  you  can  think 
them  and  know  them  to  be  true,  is  just  as 
wonderful. 

And  that  the  moon  spins  round  the  earth,  and  on 
with  the  earth,  is  equally  wonderful ; 

And  that  they  balance  themselves  with  the  sun 
and  stars  is  equally  wonderful. 

I  do  not  of  course  suggest  that  from 
the  intuition  of  poets  anything  can  be 
finally  concluded  about  the  Immortal- 
ity of  Man.  But  I  urge  that  when  we 
approach  the  subject  it  should  be  with 
our  imagination  alert ;  that  our  hypoth- 
eses should  be  framed  under  a  com- 
pelling sense  of  our  own  limitations 


8     IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

and  the  vastness  of  the  universe;  and 
that,  if  we  approach  the  matter  thus,  the 
notion  that  something  we  may  call  a 
soul  or  self  survives  death  will  not  seem 
to  be  ruled  out  by  any  of  the  known 
facts  of  our  experience. 

Thus  much  I  have  said  merely  to 
clear  the  ground  for  the  point  I  pro- 
pose to  discuss.  Considering  it  to  be 
an  open  question  whether  or  no  immor- 
tality is  a  fact,  I  shall  devote  the  rest  of 
my  time  to  the  inquiry  whether  and  in 
what  sense  it  is  desirable.  In  this  in- 
quiry I  hope  you  will  consider  that  I 
am  addressing  to  you  a  series  of  ques- 
tions; and  though  I  shall  not  conceal 
my  own  opinions,  it  is  not  my  object  to 
impose  them  upon  you.  I  have  to  deal 
with  a  number  of  different  and  mu- 
tually incompatible  attitudes  resulting 


IS    IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     9 

from  different  experiences  and  temper- 
aments. These  I  shall  pass  in  review, 
distinguish,  and  criticise;  and  each  of 
you,  I  assume,  meantime  will  be  con- 
sidering within  yourselves  what  your 
own  position  is  towards  each  of  them. 

The  attitudes  in  question  may  be 
broadly  distinguished  as  three.  There 
are  those  who  do  not  think  about  im- 
mortality, those  who  fear  it,  and  those 
who  desire  it. 

I.  The  majority  of  people  I  should 
suppose  belong  to  the  first  class,  ex- 
cept perhaps  in  certain  crises  of  life. 
The  normal  attitude  of  men  towards 
death  seems  to  be  one  of  inattention 
or  evasion.  They  do  not  trouble  about 
it ;  they  do  not  want  to  trouble  about 
it;  and  they  resent  its  being  called  to 
their  notice.  And  this,  I  believe^  is  as 


lo     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

true  of  those  who  nominally  accept 
Christianity  as  of  those  who  reject  any 
form  of  religion.  On  this  point  the  late 
Frederic  Myers  used  to  tell  a  story 
which  I  have  always  thought  very  il- 
luminating. In  conversation  after  din- 
ner he  was  pressing  on  his  host  the 
unwelcome  question,  what  he  thought 
would  happen  after  death.  After  many 
evasions  and  much  recalcitrancy  the  re- 
luctant admission  was  extorted :  "  Of 
course,  if  you  press  me,  I  believe  that 
we  shall  all  enter  into  eternal  bliss;  but 
I  wish  you  would  n't  talk  about  such 
disagreeable  subjects."  This,  I  believe, 
is  typical  of  the  normal  mood  of  most 
men.  They  don't  want  to  be  worried; 
and  though  probably,  if  the  question 
were  pressed,  they  would  object  to  the 
idea  of  extinction,  they  can  hardly  be 


IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     ii 

said  to  desire  immortality.  Even  at  the 
point  of  death,  it  would  seem,  this  at- 
titude is  often  maintained.  Thus  Pro- 
fessor Osier  writes:  — 

I  have  careful  records  of  about  five  hun- 
dred death-beds,  studied  particularly  with  ref- 
erence to  the  modes  of  death  and  the  sensa- 
tions of  the  dying.  The  latter  alone  concern 
us  here.  Ninety  suffered  bodily  pain  or  dis- 
tress of  one  sort  or  another,  eleven  showed 
mental  apprehension,  two  positive  terror, 
one  expressed  spiritual  exaltation,  one  bitter 
remorse.  The  great  majority  gave  no  signs 
one  way  or  the  other;  like  their  birth,  their 
death  was  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting.s 

1.  It  cannot,  then,  I  think,  be  said 
that  most  men  desire  immortality ; 
rather  they  are,  in  their  normal  mood, 
and  even  at  the  point  of  death,  indif- 
ferent to  the  question.   But  most  men 


12     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

perhaps  in  some  moods,  and  some  men 
continually,  do  reflect  upon  the  subject 
and  have  conscious  and  definite  desires 
about  it.  Of  these,  however,  not  all  de- 
sire immortality ;  and  some  are  so  far 
from  desiring  it  that  they  passionately 
crave  for  extinction,  and  would  receive 
the  news  that  they  survive  death  not 
with  exultation,  but  with  despair.  The 
two  positions  are  to  be  distinguished. 
On  the  one  hand,  a  man  may  simply 
have  had  enough  of  life  without  having 
any  quarrel  with  it,  and  may  prefer  to 
the  idea  of  continued  existence  that  of 
oblivion  and  repose.  Such,  according 
to  Metchnikoff,^  would  be  the  normal 
attitude  of  men  if  they  were  not  habit- 
ually cut  off  before  the  natural  term 
of  life,  a  term  which  he  puts  at  well 
over  a  hundred  years.  And  such  seems, 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     13 

In  fact,  to  be  the  attitude  of  some  men 
even  under  present  conditions.  It  is 
beautifully  and  classically  expressed  in 
the  well  -  known  epitaph  written  by 
the  poet  Landor  for  himself:  — 

I  strove   with    none,    for    none    was  worth  my 
strife ; 

Nature  I  loved  and  next  to  nature  art ; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life ; 

It  sinks  and  I  am  ready  to  depart. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those 
who  not  merely  acquiesce  in  but  desire 
extinction;  and  that,  because  they  be- 
lieve, on  philosophic  or  other  grounds, 
that  any  possible  life  must  be  bad. 
These  are  the  people  called  pessi- 
mists; they  are  more  numerous  than  is 
often  believed  ;  and  they  are  apt  to  be 
regarded  by  the  plain  man  with  a  certain 
moral  reprobation.  That  this  should  be 


14     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

SO  is  an  interesting  testimony  to  the 
instinctive  optimism  of  mankind.  But 
the  optimism,  it  will  perhaps  be  agreed, 
is  commonly  less  profound  than  the 
pessimism.  Whatever  may  be  the  prom- 
ise of  life,  it  is,  as  we  know  it,  to  those 
who  look  at  it  fairly  and  straight,  very 
terrible,  unjust,  and  cruel.  And  if  any 
conceivable  subsequent  life  must  be 
of  the  same  character  as  this,  no  freer 
from  limitation,  no  richer  in  hope,  no 
fuller  in  achievement,  then  the  pessi- 
mist has  at  any  rate  a  strong  prim  a  facie 
case.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  obvi- 
ous point  that  the  desirability  of  a  future 
life  must  depend  upon  its  character, 
just  as  does  the  desirability  of  this  one. 
So  that  it  is  relevant  to  ask  those  who 
acquiesce  in  or  desire  extinction  whether 
or  no  there  is  some  kind  of  life  which. 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     15 

if  offered  to  them  securely,  they  would 
be  willing  to  accept  after  death. 

3.  Let  us  turn  then  to  our  third  class, 
those  who  desire  immortality,  and  ask 
them  what  it  is  they  desire  and  whether 
it  is  really  desirable.  For  a  number  of 
very  different  conceptions  may  be  cov- 
ered by  the  same  phrase.  And  first, 
there  are  those  who  simply  do  not  want 
to  die,  and  whose  desire  for  immortality 
is  merely  the  expression  of  this  feeling. 
Old  people,  so  far  as  I  have  observed, 
often  cling  in  this  way  to  life,  more 
often,  indeed,  than  the  young.  Yet  if 
they  could  put  it  fairly  to  themselves, 
they  would,  I  suppose,  hardly  say  that 
they  would  wish  to  go  on  forever  in 
this  life,  with  all  their  infirmities  in- 
creasing upon  them.^  Nothing  surely 
is  sadder,  nothing  meaner,  than  this 


i6     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

desire  to  prolong  life  here  at  all  costs. 
The  sick,  the  infirm,  the  aged,  that  we 
care  for  them  as  we  do  may  be  cred- 
itable to  our  humanity.  But  that  they 
desire  to  be  cared  for,  instead  of  to  de- 
part, is  that  so  creditable  to  theirs?  I 
will  go  further  and  say  that  to  arrest 
any  period  of  life,  even  the  best,  the 
most  glorious  youth,  the  most  trium- 
phant manhood,  is  what  no  reasonable 
man  will  rightly  desire.  To  the  values 
of  life,  at  any  rate  as  we  know  it  now, 
the  change  we  call  growing  older  seems 
to  be  essential ;  and  we  cannot  wisely 
wish  to  arrest  that  process  anywhere 
this  side  of  death.  I  shall  suppose  that 
you  agree  with  that  and  pass  to  another 
conception. 

It  may  be  held  that  life,  as  we  know 
it,  is  so  desirable  that  though  it  would 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     17 

not  be  a  good  thing  to  prolong  it  in- 
definitely, it  would  be  a  good  thing  to 
repeat  it  over  and  over  again.  That  we 
may  treat  this  notion  fairly,  I  will  ask 
you  to  suppose  that  in  none  of  these 
repetitions  is  there  any  memory  of  the 
previous  cycles ;  for  every  one,  I  expect, 
would  agree  that  the  repetition  of  a  life, 
every  episode  of  which  is  remembered 
to  have  occurred  before,  is  a  prospect 
of  appalling  tediousness.  Supposing, 
however,  that  memory  is  extinguished 
at  each  death,  we  have  a  position  that 
may  be  worth  examining.  It  is,  as  many 
of  you  will  remember,  the  position  of 
that  remarkable  man  of  genius,  Niet- 
zsche ;  and,  if  only  for  that  reason,  de- 
serves a  moment's  consideration.  Not 
only  did  Nietzsche  believe  it  on  physi- 
cal grounds   to   be  true,  —  on  which 


i8     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

point  I  leave  him  to  the  tender  mer- 
cies of  physicists, — but  —  and  this  is 
what  interests  us  here —  he  welcomes 
it  as  the  great  redeeming  hope.  He 
christens  it  "  eternal  recurrence,"  and 
hails  it  in  this  passionate  refrain  :  — 

Oh  !  How  could  I  fail  to  be  eager  for 
eternity,  and  for  the  marriage  ring  of  rings, 
the  ring  of  recurrence  ? 

Never  yet  have  I  found  the  woman  by 
whom  I  should  like  to  have  children,  unless 
it  be  this  woman  I  love ;  for  I  love  thee,  O 
eternity  ! 

For  I  love  thee,  O  eternity  !  ^ 

Thus  Nietzsche;  but  we,  do  we  agree 
with  him  ?  Do  we,  too,  love  this  eter- 
nity ?  The  answer  seems  plain.  So  far 
as  a  man  judges  any  life,  his  own  or 
another's,  to  be  valuable,  here  and  now, 
in  and  for  itself,  apart  from  any  consid- 


IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     19 

eration  of  immortality,  he  will  reason- 
ably desire  that  it  should  be  repeated 
as  often  as  possible,  rather  than  occur 
once  and  never  again  ;  for  the  positive 
value  he  finds  in  it  will  be  reproduced 
in  each  repetition.  On  the  other  hand, 
so  far  as  he  finds  any  life  in  itself  not 
to  be  valuable,  or  that  its  value  de- 
pends upon  some  other  kind  of  im- 
mortality, the  prospect  held  out  by 
Nietzsche  will  leave  him  cold  or  fill 
him  with  dismay.  This  Nietzsche  him- 
self quite  candidly  recognizes. 

"Alas!"  he  says,  in  another  place  : 

Alas !  man  recurreth  eternally  !  The  small 
man  recurreth  eternally  ! 

Once  I  had  seen  both  naked,  the  greatest 
man  and  the  smallest  man  —  all-too-like 
unto  each  other  —  all-too-human  even  the 
greatest  man  ! 


20     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

All-too-small  the  greatest  one !  That  was 
my  satiety  of  man.  And  eternal  recurrence 
even  of  the  smallest  one  !  That  was  my  sa- 
tiety of  all  existence. 

Alas  !  loathing  !  loathing!  loathing  ! 

We  may  say  then  with  Nietzsche's 
clear  approval — and  I  am  sure  com- 
mon sense  agrees  with  him  —  that  such 
an  immortality  is  valuable  only  for  val- 
uable lives.  And  Nietzsche,  I  fear, 
would  not  admit  value  in  the  lives  of 
any  of  us  in  this  room  ;  for  the  valua- 
ble men  are  the  men  yet  to  come,  the 
Super-men.  Still,  we  may,  many  of  us, 
differing  from  Nietzsche,  think  our 
own  lives  valuable,  in  and  for  them- 
selves, and  in  that  case  we  may  rea- 
sonably desire  the  only  immortality 
Nietzsche  can  promise  us.  On  the 
other  handj  there  is  no  reason,  that  I 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     21 

have  been  able  to  discover,  for  accepting 
Nietzsche's  cosmology.  Quite  other 
possibilities  may,  for  aught  we  know, 
be  open  to  us.  And  we  may  proceed 
to  examine  whether  there  are  not  con- 
ceptions of  immortality  which  we 
should  hold  to  be  more  desirable  than 
this.  Hitherto  we  have  been  dealing 
with  the  idea  of  prolongations  or  repe- 
titions of  life  on  earth.  Let  us  now  ex- 
tend our  imaginations  to  possibilities 
farther  from  our  experience. 

And  first,  let  us  take  the  Christian 
conception  of  immortality;  and  let  us 
take  it  in  its  simple  uncompromising 
form,  the  last  judgment,  and  then 
heaven  or  hell  for  all  eternity.  I  am 
aware,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  in  this 
form  that  many  or  most  Christians  now 
conceive  the  life  after  death.  But  the 


22     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

old  and  simple  view  is  of  philosophic 
as  well  as  historic  importance ;  and  it 
is  well  worth  considering  here.  With- 
out discussing,  at  present,  the  exact 
nature  of  heaven  and  hell,  and  assuming 
the  orthodox  descriptions  to  be  alle- 
gorical, let  us  suppose  that  by  heaven 
we  mean  all  that  the  noblestmen  would 
desire,  and  by  hell  all  that  the  basest 
men  would  fear ;  and  let  us  ask, 
Would  an  immortality  involving  both 
heaven  and  hell  be  more  desirable  than 
extinction  ?  From  the  humanitarian 
point  of  view,  which  is  now  so  preva- 
lent, and  with  which  I,  at  any  rate, 
have  no  intention  of  quarrelling,  I  be- 
lieve most  men  would  reply  that  ex- 
tinction would  be  better.  Most  good 
men  who  might  with  reason  expect 
heaven  would,  I  suspect,  prefer  to  re- 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     23 

sign  it  if  they  can  only  have  it  on  con- 
dition that  others  —  no  matter  though 
they  be  the  wicked  —  are  enduring  hell. 
This,  to  my  mind,  is  a  notable  advance 
on  the  morality  exhibited  in  the  often- 
quoted  passage  of  Tertullian.^  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  spirits  much 
nobler  and  profounder  than  he  have 
accepted  with  solemn  and  deliberate 
approbation  the  doctrine  of  hell.  Re- 
member the  astounding  words  of 
Dante,  written  over  the  gate  of  his  In- 
ferno :  "  It  was  justice  that  moved  my 
High  Maker ;  Divine  Power  made  me, 
Wisdom  Supreme,  and  Primal  Love." 
Was  Dante,  then,  less  humane  than 
smaller  men  of  to-day  ?  I  doubt  it ;  he 
had  a  deeper  spring  of  tenderness  as 
well  as  of  sternness.  But  —  and  this 
is  the  point  I  want  you  to  consider  — 


24     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

he  believed  in  retribution.  That  I 
think  is  the  root  of  the  Christian  idea, 
so  far  as  it  does  not  spring  from  mere 
cupidity  or  cruelty.  That  the  wicked 
should  be  punished  and  the  good  re- 
warded, that,  it  affirms,  is,  in  itself,  a 
positive  good  far  greater  than  happi- 
ness or  perfection.  The  view  is  by  no 
means  extinct ;  it  underlies,  I  believe, 
most  men's  attitude  towards  punish- 
ment, in  spite  of  the  superficial  preva- 
lence of  utilitarianism  :  it  was  passion- 
ately preached  by  Carlyle  ;^''  and  I  have 
myself  heard  a  philosopher  (need  I  say 
he  was  a  Scotchman  ?)  argue  that  a 
world  containing  crime  is  better  than 
a  world  free  from  it,  because  the  pun- 
ishment of  crime  is  so  transcendent  a 
Good.  I  leave  it  to  your  own  reflec- 
tions to  what  extent  you  share  these 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     25 

views.  For  my  own  part,  in  my  delib- 
erate judgment,  I  regard  them  with 
something  approaching  horror.  I  do 
not  hold  that  there  is  any  value  in 
punishment,  except  in  so  far  as  it  im- 
proves the  criminal  or  deters  others 
from  crime.  Whether,  and  to  what  ex- 
tent, the  idea  of  hell  has  ever  deterred 
from  crime  I  do  not  now  inquire.  I  n  any 
case,  it  is  the  idea,  not  the  fact,  that 
has  deterred ;  so  that,  from  this  point 
of  view,  the  most  that  could  be  said 
to  be  desirable  would  be  that  the  idea 
should  be  maintained,  not  that  there 
should  exist  any  corresponding  fact. 
Even  that  much,  however,  I  could  not 
myself  admit ;  for  I  believe  the  pen- 
alties of  human  law  to  be  a  surer  de- 
terrent, so  far  and  so  long  as  such 
deterrents  are  necessary  at  all.   I  do 


26     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

not  think,  therefore,  that  even  the  idea, 
much  less  the  fact,  of  hell,  has  any 
justification  from  that  point  of  view. 
And  as  to  the  improvement  of  the 
criminal,  that  is  ruled  out  in  the  Chris- 
tian hell,  for  it  is  precisely  part  of  his 
punishment  that  he  is,  and  knows  him- 
self to  be,  eternally  wicked.  I  judge 
then,  and  I  expect  that  most  of  you 
agree  with  me,  that  if  we  desire  im- 
mortality, it  is  not  for  the  sake  of 
retribution,  regarded  either  as  a  good 
in  itself  or  as  a  means  to  good  ;  and 
that  being  so,  the  notion  of  hell,  left 
stripped  of  that  support,  is  so  dreadful 
that  we  should  prefer  universal  extinc- 
tion to  an  immortality  involving  that. 
If  this  contention  be  accepted,  it  is 
natural  next  to  suggest  that  the  im- 
mortality that  is  desirable  would  be 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     27 

some  kind  of  heaven  not  conditioned 
by  the  existence  of  a  hell.  But  in  that 
case,  what  are  we  to  mean  by  heaven  ? 
If  I  am  not  much  mistaken,  there  are 
few  intelhgent  people  —  probably  there 
is  no  one  in  this  audience  —  who  look 
forward  with  real  satisfaction  to  the 
traditional  Christian  heaven.  It  has 
always  been  extraordinarily  difficult  to 
picture  a  condition  of  perfect  satis- 
faction and  goodness.  The  "  Para- 
diso"  of  Dante  is  indeed,  for  its 
superhuman  beauty,  an  achievement 
one  might  have  thought  must  be 
impossible  to  human  genius.  Yet  do 
we  feel  exactly  that  we  wish  to  enter 
it?  And  no  one  is  likely,  I  think,  in 
such  a  matter  to  surpass  Dante.  My 
conclusion  is  that  the  object  of  our 
desire  is  in  fact  unknown  to  us,  and 


28     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

unimaginable  save  in  the  faintest  and 
most  symbolical  adumbrations.  Does 
it  follow,  then,  that  we  have  no  inter- 
est in  heaven?  I  do  not  think  so.  But 
rather,  that  by  heaven  we  really  mean 
the  ultimate  term  of  a  process  in  which 
we  are  engaged,  of  the  end  of  which 
we  can  only  say  that  it  is  Good.  I  say 
"we";  and  I  say  so  because  I  think 
that  there  are  many  people  who  in 
this  matter  agree  with  me ;  otherwise  I 
should  hardly  be  speaking  here.  But 
at  this  point  it  may  really  be  more 
modest  to  say  "I,"  to  tell  you  simply 
how  I  feel,  and  to  ask  you  whether  you 
feel  the  same. 

I  find  then  that,  to  me,  in  my  pre- 
sent experience,  the  thing  that  at  bot- 
tom matters  most  is  the  sense  I  have 
of  something  in  me  making  for  more 


IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     29 

life  and  better.  All  my  pain  is  at  last 
a  feeling  of  the  frustration  of  this  ;  all 
my  happiness  a  feeling  of  its  satisfac- 
tion. I  do  not  know  what  this  is;  I 
am  not  prepared  to  give  a  coherent 
account  of  it ;  I  ought  not,  very  likely, 
to  call  it  "it,"  and  to  imply  the  cate- 
gory of  substance.  I  will  abandon,  if 
necessary,  under  criticism,  any  particu- 
lar terms  in  which  I  may  try  to  de- 
scribe it;  I  will  abandon  anything 
except  Itself.  For  It  is  real.  It  gov- 
erns all  my  experience,  and  determines 
all  my  judgments  of  value.  If  pleas- 
ure hampers  it,  I  do  not  desire  pleas- 
ure; if  pain  furthers  it,  I  do  desire 
pain.  And  what  I  feel  in  myself,  I  in- 
fer in  others.  If  I  may  be  allowed  to 
use  that  ambiguous  and  question-beg- 
ging word  "  soul,"  then  I  agree  with 


30     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

the  poet  Browning  that  "  little  else  is 
worth  study  save  the  development  of 
a  soul."  This  is  to  me  the  bottom  fact 
of  experience.  And  no  one  can  go  any 
further  with  me  in  my  argument  who 
does  not  find  in  my  words  an  indica- 
tion, however  imperfect,  of  something 
which  he  knows,  in  his  own  life,  to  be 
real. 

What,  then,  is  it  that  this  which  I 
call  the  "  soul  "  seeks?  It  seeks  what 
is  Good ;  but  it  does  not  know  what 
is  ultimate  Good.  As  a  seventeenth- 
century  writer  has  well  put  it :  "  We 
love  we  know  not  what,  and  therefore 
everything  allures  us.  As  iron  at  a 
distance  is  drawn  by  the  loadstone, 
there  being  some  invisible  communi- 
cation between  them,  so  is  there  in  us 
a  world  of  Love  to  somewhat,  though 


IS   IMMORTALITY  DESIRABLE?     31 

we  know  not  what  in  the  world  that 
should  be.  There  are  invisible  ways 
of  conveyance  by  which  some  great 
thing  doth  touch  our  souls,  and  by 
which  we  tend  to  it.  Do  you  not  feel 
yourself  drawn  by  the  expectation  and 
desire  of  some  great  thing?""  This 
"  great  thing  "  it  is  our  business  to  find 
out  by  experience.  We  do  find  many 
good  things,  but  there  are  always  other 
and  better  beyond.  That  is  why  it  is 
hazardous  to  fix  one's  ideal,  and  say 
finally,  "This  or  that  would  be 
heaven."  For  we  may  find,  as  the 
voyagers  did  in  Browning's  "  Paracel- 
sus," that  the  real  heaven  Hes  always 
beyond;  beyond  each  Good  we  may 
attain  here ;  but  also,  which  is  my  pre- 
sent point,  beyond  death.  The  whole 
strength  of  the  case  for  immortality, 


32     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

as  a  thing  to  be  desired,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  no  one  in  this  life  attains  his 
ideal.  The  soul,  even  of  the  best 
and  the  most  fortunate  of  us,  does 
not  achieve  the  Good  of  which  she 
feels  herself  to  be  capable  and  in 
which  alone  she  can  rest.  The  poten- 
tiality is  not  fully  realized.  I  do  not 
infer  from  this  that  life  has  no  value 
if  the  Beyond  is  cut  off.  That,  I  think, 
is  contrary  to  most  men's  experience. 
The  Goods  we  have  here  are  real 
Goods,  and  we  may  find  the  Evil  more 
than  compensated  by  them.  But  what 
I  do  maintain  is  that  life  here  would 
have  indefinitely  more  value  if  we 
knew  that  beyond  death  we  should 
pursue,  and  ultimately  to  a  successful 
issue,  the  elusive  ideal  of  which  we 
are  always  in   quest.   The  conception 


IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     33 

that  death  ends  all  does  not  empty 
life  of  its  worth,  but  it  destroys,  in 
my  judgment,  its  most  precious  ele- 
ment, that  which  transfigures  all  the 
rest;  it  obliterates  the  gleam  on  the 
snow,  the  planet  in  the  east;  it  shuts 
off  the  great  adventure,  the  adventure 
beyond  death. 

Every  one  almost,  I  cannot  help 
thinking,  who  feels  at  all  on  such  mat- 
ters, must  feel  with  me  on  this  point, 
if  he  could  give  his  feelings  full  sway 
unchecked  by  his  denials  or  his  doubts. 
Every  one  not  immediately  in  the  grip 
of  intolerable  Evil,  but  looking  back 
with  impassioned  contemplation  on 
Good  and  Evil  alike,  must  desire,  I 
believe,  to  journey  on  in  the  quest  of 
Good,  whatever  Evil  he  may  encoun- 
ter on  the  route.  Americans  at  least,  I 


34     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

like  to  suppose,  will  respond  to  their 
own  poet  when  in  the  passion  of  his 
visionary  voyage  from  West  to  East, 
from  present  to  past  and  future,  he 
calls  on  his  soul  to  embark  for  an  ad- 
venture more  hazardous  and  more 
alluring :  — 

Passage,  immediate  passage  !  the  blood  burns  in 

my  veins  ! 
Away  O  soul  !  hoist  instantly  the  anchor  ! 
Cut   the  hawsers  —  haul  out  —  shake  out  every 

sail  ! 
Have  we  not  stood  here  like  trees  in  the  ground 

long  enough  ? 
Have  we  not  grovel' d  here  long  enough,  eating 

and  drinking  like  mere  brutes  ? 
Have  we  not  darkened  and  dazed  ourselves  with 

books  long  enough  ? 
Sail  forth  —  steer  for  the  dark  waters  only. 
Reckless  O  soul  exploring,  I  with  thee,  and  thou 

with  me ; 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     35 

For  we  are   bound  where  mariner  has  not   yet 

dared  to  go. 
And  we  will  risk  the  ship,  ourselves  and  all. 
O  my  brave  soul  ! 
O  farther,  farther  sail  ! 
O  daring  joy,  but  safe  !  are  they  not  all  the  seas 

of  God  ? 
O  farther,  farther,  sail  ! 

My  contention  then  is  that  immor- 
tality is  desirable,  if  immortality  means 
a  fortunate  issue  of  the  quest  of  our 
souls.  But  the  use  of  the  word  soul 
reminds  me  of  a  whole  series  of  ambi- 
guities and  confusions  which  I  must 
not  pass  over  in  silence.  The  subject 
of  the  Ingersoll  lecture  is  the  "Im- 
mortality of  Man,"  and  "  Man  "  might 
conceivably  be  taken  to  mean  Hu- 
manity. Positivists  hold  that  the  only 
immortality  which  an  individual  can 
expect  is  the  perpetuation  of  his  in- 


36      IS  IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE  ? 

fluence  and  of  his  memory  among 
future  generations.  This  abiding  mem- 
ory and  record  Comte  named  "  sub- 
jective immortality,"  and  held  out,  as 
the  great  stimulus  to  good  conduct, 
the  prospect  of  admission  into  the 
company  of  positivist  saints.  A  simi- 
lar view  is  held  by  many  men  of  more 
imagination  and  less  system  than 
Comte.  Thus  Mr.  George  Meredith 
is  constantly  exhorting  us  to  live  in 
our  offspring,  physical  or  spiritual,  and 
to  dismiss  from  our  minds  as  at  once 
silly  and  base  any  desire  for  a  continu- 
ance of  personal  life.^^  That  this  kind 
of  immortality  may  really  be,  to  some 
minds,  desirable,  I  do  not  dispute;  nor 
do  I  deny  it  a  certain  nobility.  But  it 
is  not  what  men  commonly  have  in 
mind,  nor  what  I  have  had  in  mind,  in 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     37 

consideringthis  question.  I  have  meant 
the  perpetuation  of  one's  "  self"  be- 
yond death,  the  realization  of  one's 
ideal  in  one's  self,  not  in  some  other 
people  to  be  possibly  produced  in  some 
indefinite  future.  But,  then,  what  is 
this  "self"  of  which  I  argue  that  it  is 
desirable  it  shall  be  perpetuated  ?  This 
is  a  very  difficult  question,  on  which 
I  can  here  only  touch;  but  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  distinguish  two  views. 
First,  the  soul  or  self  may  be  regarded 
simply  as  a  substance ;  and  in  postu- 
lating it  as  immortal  we  may  mean 
merely  that  the  substance  is  not  de- 
stroyed by  death.  In  this  view  no  con- 
tinuity of  consciousness  is  assumed.  It 
is  held  that  we  shall  survive  death  but 
shall  not  be  aware  of  it,  just  as  there 
may  lie  behind  our  present  lives  a  series 


38     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

of  other  lives  of  which  we  have  no 
knowledge.  The  identity  of  the  per- 
son, in  this  view,  consists,  not  in  his 
knowing  himself  to  be  the  same  per- 
son, but  in  his  being  so  in  fact.  The 
whole  series  of  his  actions  and  feelings 
in  one  life  are  determined  by  those  of 
a  previous,  and  determine  those  of  a 
subsequent  life.  Every  lesson  learned, 
every  faculty  acquired,  every  relation 
formed  at  any  stage,  is  carried  over 
into  the  next;  so  that,  for  example, 
the  musical  faculty  of  an  infant  prodigy 
might  be  the  consequence  of  musical 
training  in  a  previous  life,  and  love  at 
first  sight  the  consequence  of  affections 
fostered  in  earlier  incarnations.  The 
question  then  for  us  to  raise  is,  whether 
that  kind  of  immortality  would  be  de- 
sirable? Most  people,  I  believe,  would 


IS    IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     39 

be  inclined,  to  begin  with,  to  answer 
in  the  negative.  For,  they  might  urge, 
it  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  exactly 
the  same  thing  whether  my  present 
personality  is  determined  completely 
by  my  ancestors  and  my  environment, 
as  it  is  on  the  positivist  assumptions, 
or  whether  it  is  determined  by  some 
substance  which  you  call  "  me,"  but  of 
which  I  have  not  and  never  shall  have 
any  memory  or  care,  and  which  again, 
in  some  future  phase,  will  have  no 
memory  or  care  for  the  present  "me." 
This  view  is  plausible  and  natural, 
but  I  think  I  dissent  from  it.  I  am  in- 
clined to  agree  with  Dr.  McTaggart,*^ 
when  he  argues  that  a  survival  of 
the  substance  of  one's  self  would  be 
desirable,  even  though  it  carried  with 
it  no  consciousness  of  survival.   It  is. 


40     IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

I  think,  a  really  consoling  idea  that 
our  present  capacities  are  determined 
by  our  previous  actions,  and  that  our 
present  actions  again  will  determine 
our  future  character.  It  seems  to  liber- 
ate us  from  the  bonds  of  an  external  fate 
and  make  us  the  captains  of  our  own 
destinies.  If  we  have  formed  here  a 
beautiful  relation,  it  will  not  perish  at 
death  but  be  perpetuated,  albeit  un- 
consciously, in  some  future  life.  If 
we  have  developed  a  faculty  here,  it 
will  not  be  destroyed,  but  will  be  the 
starting-point  of  later  developments. 
Again,  if  we  suffer,  as  most  people  do, 
from  imperfections  and  misfortunes,  it 
would  be  consoling  to  believe  that 
these  were  punishments  of  our  own 
acts  in  the  past,  not  mere  effects  of  the 
acts  of  other  people,  or  of  an  indiffer- 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     41 

ent  nature  over  which  we  have  no 
control.  The  world,  I  think,  on  this 
hypothesis  would  at  least  seem  juster 
than  it  does  on  the  positivist  view, 
and  that  in  itself  would  be  a  great  gain. 
I  agree,  therefore,  with  Dr.  McTaggart 
that  an  immortality  which  should  im- 
ply the  continuance  of  a  self-substance, 
even  without  a  self-  consciousness, 
would  be  desirable.  But  I  also  hold 
that  much  more  desirable  would  be  an 
immortality  which  carried  with  it  a  con- 
tinuance of  consciousness.  Let  us  now 
take  that  hypothesis  and  consider  how 
much  or  how  little  is  implied  in  such 
continuance. 

To  begin  with,  then,  our  present  ex- 
perience tells  us  that  complete  memory 
is  not  essential  to  continuity  of  con- 
sciousness. The  content  of  our  memory 


42     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

is,  in  fact,  always  changing.  Some 
things  drop  out  and  others  come  in. 
Parts  of  our  past  may  disappear,  tem- 
porarily atleast,  from  our  consciousness, 
so  that  to  be  told  of  them  is  Hke  being 
told  of  the  experience  of  some  other 
person.  Again,  every  night,  in  sleep, 
there  is  a  complete  break  in  continu- 
ity. So  that  we  may  say  that  we  should 
consider  ourselves  the  same  person 
after  death  if  there  were  just  enough 
continuity  for  us  to  know  and  judge 
that  we,  who  are  dead,  are  that  same 
person  who  just  now  was  alive.  True, 
much  more  than  this  is  implied  in  what 
most  people  who  take  any  interest  in 
the  subject  demand  or  hope  from  im- 
mortality. They  hope,  in  particular,  to 
meet  again  friends  they  have  loved  here ; 
and  there  must  be  few  people  who,  in 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     43 

the  face  of  death,  have  not  felt  this  de- 
sire. It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  this 
might  occur,  and  I  am  inclined  to  agree 
that  it  would  be  desirable.  But  I  think 
that  perhaps  in  that  one  may  be  mis- 
taken. All  that  I  am  quite  clear  about 
is  that  it  would  be  desirable  that  this 
same  person  who  now  is  should  con- 
tinue to  exist  after  death,  and  to  know 
that  he  is  the  same  person ;  and  that 
this  continued  existence  should  involve 
the  possibility  of  a  development  of  la- 
tent faculties  for  Good  up  to  that  per- 
fection after  which,  without  being  able 
fully  to  define  it,  we  are  always  seek- 
ing. As  to  the  whole  content  of  what 
would  be  desirable,  I  should  think  it 
wise  to  reserve  judgment  till  fuller  ex- 
perience and  knowledge  enlighten  us. 
In  particular,  I  hesitate  to  dogma- 


44     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

tize  on  one  point  which  is  raised  by 
the  philosophies  and  religions  of  mys- 
ticism. Is  it  conceivable  that  what  would 
really  be  good  would  be  that  our  self 
shouldsomehowbetakenupintoalarger 
World-self?  I  use  purposely  the  am- 
biguous phrase  "taken  up  "  because  I 
wish  further  to  distinguish.  If  it  be 
meant  that  our  self  should  be  absorbed 
in  another,  so  as  to  lose  its  identity 
and  consciousness,  then  I  cannot  see 
in  that  anything  good  or  desirable.  But 
if  it  were  possible  to  be  included  in  a 
larger  self  without  losing  one's  own  self, 
so  that  one  could  say  "  I  am  somehow 
that  Self"  then,  for  aught  I  know,  that 
might  be  good  and  the  best.  But  since 
most  of  us  in  the  West  would,  I  sup- 
pose, admit  that  such  a  condition  is 
one  of  which  we  have  not  even  a  proxi- 


IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     45 

mate  experience,  this  notion  can  only- 
remain  for  us  a  mere  idea  or  possibility 
which  we  cannot  begin  to  fill  in  with 
the  imagination. 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  immortality 
which  I  hold  to  be  desirable,  and  which 
I  suggest  to  you  as  desirable,  is  one  in 
which  a  continuity  of  experience  anal- 
ogous to  that  which  we  are  aware  of 
here  is  carried  on  into  a  life  after  death, 
the  essence  of  that  life  being  the  con- 
tinuous unfolding,  no  doubt  through 
stress  and  conflict,  of  those  potential- 
ities of  Good  of  which  we  are  aware 
here  as  the  most  significant  part  of 
ourselves.  I  hold  that  the  desirability  of 
this  is  a  matter  of  plain  fact,  and  that 
in  putting  it  forward  I  am  giving  no 
evidence  of  superstition,  weakness,  or 
egotism,  but  on  the  contrary  am  recog- 


46     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

nizing  the  deepest  element  in  human 
nature.  Some  of  you,  probably,  will 
agree  with  this ;  others  will  strongly  disa- 
gree ;  and  to  those  who  disagree  I  have 
no  further  arguments  to  address;  we 
disagree  invincibly  and  finally. 

But  there  is  one  point  on  which  I 
must  touch  in  conclusion.  For  even 
those  who  agree  with  me  on  the  ques- 
tion of  desirability  may  still  hold  that 
it  is  of  little  use  to  put  forward  as 
desirable  something  which  we  cannot 
know  to  be  true,  or  which,  as  they  may 
hold,  we  know  not  to  be  true.  It  was 
with  this  point  that  I  began,  and  with 
it  I  will  finish.  I  must  repeat,  then, 
that  it  is  mere  dogmatism  to  assert  that 
we  do  not  survive  death,  and  mere  pre- 
judice or  inertia  to  assert  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  discover  whether  we  do  or 


IS    IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE?     47 

no.  We  in  the  West  have  hardly  even 
begun  to  inquire  into  the  matter;  and 
scientific  method  and  critical  faculty 
were  never  devoted  to  it,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware,  previous  to  the  foundation, 
some  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research.  There 
are,  and  always  have  been,  a  number 
of  alleged  facts  suggesting ^n'w^  facie 
the  survival  of  death.  But  these  facts 
have  always  been  exploited  by  super- 
stition and  credulity,  or  repudiated  by 
the  prejudices  of  enlightenment.  They 
are  now,  at  last,  being  systematically 
and  deliberately  explored  by  men  and 
women  of  intelligence  and  good  faith 
bent  on  ascertaining  the  truth.  It  would 
be  premature  to  suggest  that  any  truth 
on  this  subject  has  been  ascertained; 
but  it  is  my  own  opinion  that  the  re- 


48     IS   IMMORTALITY    DESIRABLE? 

cent  investigations  conducted  by  the 
Society,  and  published  in  their  "Pro- 
ceedings,"" have  made  it  incumbent 
upon  students  to  take  into  serious  ac- 
count the  hypothesis  that  persons  sur- 
vive death.  The  fact  of  survival,  it  is 
true,  would  not  carry  with  it  the  proof 
of  immortality  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
term  ;  but  it  would  destroy  the  princi- 
pal argument  against  it.  Such  inquir- 
ies, therefore,  it  might  be  supposed, 
and  such  results  would  excite  a  very 
widespread  interest.  Yet  such  is  not  the 
case ;  and  I  believe  the  reason  to  be 
that  there  is  no  general  conviction  that 
the  question  is  one  of  immense  impor- 
tance to  the  value  oflife.*^  My  conten- 
tion is  that  it  is ;  that  there  is  a  kind 
of  immortality  which,  if  it  were  a  fact, 
would  be  a  very  desirable  one.  To  ask 


IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE?     49 

the  question,  as  I  have  been  doing, 
whether  you  agree  with  me  in  this;  to 
invite  you  to  sift  your  feehngs  and  to 
make  yourselves  clear  as  to  what  they 
really  are,  is  therefore,  in  my  opinion, 
a  procedure  which  has  a  direct  bearing 
upon  the  pursuitofpositiveknowledge. 
For  unless  you  think  it  really  impor- 
tant to  know  the  truth,  you  will  never 
pursue  it  nor  encourage  those  who  do. 
You  will  content  yourselves  with  a  lazy 
acquiescence  either  in  the  dogmas  of 
religion  or  in  those  of  science,  and  will 
regard  inquirers  who  take  the  question 
seriously  either  as  harmless  cranks  or 
as  disreputable  charlatans.  Many  of 
them  are,  but  some  of  them  are  not, 
and  none  of  them  need  be  from  the 
nature  of  the  topic.  And  in  asking  you 
to-night,  as  clearly  as  I  can,  the  ques- 


50    IS   IMMORTALITY   DESIRABLE? 

tion,  Do  you  want  immortality,  and 
in  what  form  ?  I  conceive  myself  to  be 
doing  something  very  practical.  I  am 
not  merely  asking  you  —  though  that 
in  itself  is  important  —  to  become  clear 
with  yourselves  on  a  point  of  values ; 
I  am  asking  you  further  to  take  seri- 
ously a  branch  of  scientific  inquiry 
which  may  have  results  more  impor- 
tant than  any  other  that  is  being  pur- 
sued in  our  time. 


NOTES 


NOTES 

Note  I,  page  i.  I  have  used  the  word  Im- 
mortality, throughout  this  lecture,  to  cover  any 
prolongation  of  the  life  of  the  individual  beyond 
death.  The  survival  of  death  is  not,  of  course, 
identical  with,  and  does  not  imply,  immortality, 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  But  if  it  were 
known  that  survival  of  death  were  a  fact,  the 
principal  argument  against  immortality  would  dis- 
appear. For  our  only  reason  for  supposing  that 
we  do  not  live  forever  is  our  experience  of  death. 

Note  2,  page  j.  The  dogmatic  and,  as  I 
think,  unscientific  attitude  of  some  men  of  sci- 
ence is  illustrated  by  Professor  Munsterberg's  lit- 
tle book  The  Eternal  Life.  He  says  (page  6), 
"Necessity  moves  the  stars  in  the  sky,  and 
necessity  moves  the  emotions  in  my  mind.  No 
miracle  can  break  these  laws,  can  push  a  single 
molecule  from  its  path,  or  create  a  sensation  in  a 
mind,  when  the  body  does  not  work,  when  the 


54  NOTES 

brain  no  longer  functions."  I  have  dealt  in  the 
text  with  the  point  of  the  connection  between 
mind  and  brain.  But  I  have  not  there  dealt  with 
the  point  of  heredity.  There  is  evidence  that 
mental  as  well  as  physical  qualities  are  transmitted 
hereditarily.  And  if  it  could  be  demonstrated  that 
the  mental  qualities  of  a  person  may  be  completely 
accounted  for  in  that  way,  the  hypothesis  of  a 
mental  entity  preexisting  independently  of  the  body 
would  become  extremely  improbable.  On  the  other 
hand,  ( i  )  such  complete  demonstration  does  not 
exist.  Heredity  is  a  hypothesis  which  seems  to 
account  plausibly  for  some  of  the  facts,  but  the  limits 
of  its  applicability  have  yet  to  be  determined.  And 
(2)  to  rule  out  preexistence  would  not  be  neces- 
sarily to  rule  out  post-existence,  though  I  think  it 
would  make  it  less  probable.  The  point  I  wish 
to  make  is,  that  in  the  present  state  of  our  know- 
ledge (or  ignorance)  on  these  subjects  the  hypo- 
theses which  science  finds  it  convenient  to  use 
and  test  ought  not  to  be  set  up  to  discredit  any 
specific  and  independently  verified  facts  which 
make /r//w/?_/^«>  against  those  hypotheses.   And  I 


NOTES  55 

regard  the  question  of  the  survival  of  death,  at 
present,  as  an  open  one,  (i)  because  there  are 
certain  facts  which  seem  possibly  to  point  to  sur- 
vival, (2)  because  there  is  not,  and  probably 
cannot  be,  a  demonstration  of  the  contrary.  The 
question  of  heredity  in  its  bearing  on  preexistence 
is  discussed  by  Dr.  McTaggart  in  Some  Dogmas 
of  Religion,  page  124  seq. 

Note  J,  page  j.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of 
Religion,  page  105  seq. 

Note  4,  page  j.  The  principal  sayings  of 
Goethe  upon  the  subject  of  a  life  after  death  have 
been  collected  by  Dr.  Wilhelm  Bode  in  a  little 
book  entitled  Meine  Religion — Mein  politischer 
Glaube,  von  J.  B.  v.  Goethe.  I  translate  here  a 
few  of  the  passages :  — 

*♦  When  a  man  is  as  old  as  I  am,  he  is  bound 
sometimes  to  think  about  death.  This  thought 
leaves  me  in  perfect  peace,  for  I  have  a  firm  con- 
vicdon  that  our  spirit  is  a  being  of  indestructible 
nature;  it  works  on  from  eternity  to  eternity;  it  is 
like  the  sun  which  though  it  seems  to  set  to  our 
earthly  eyes,  does  not  really  set  but  shines  on  per- 


56  NOTES 

petually.  Do  you  think  a  coffin  can  impose  upon 
me  ? 

"No  good  man  allows  himself  to  be  robbed 
of  his  belief  in  immortality.  The  continuance  of 
personal  life  does  not  conflict  at  all  with  the  obser- 
vations I  have  been  making  for  so  many  years 
past  on  the  nature  of  Man  and  of  all  living  crea- 
tures. On  the  contrary,  it  derives  from  them  fresh 
confirmation." 

"  The  conviction  that  our  life  continues  springs 
for  me  from  the  conception  of  activity;  for,  if  I 
work  without  ceasing  to  the  end.  Nature  is  bound 
to  assign  me  another  form  of  existence,  when  the 
present  one  no  longer  suffices  for  my  spirit." 

Perhaps  I  ought  in  candor,  considering  the  sub- 
ject and  content  of  this  lecture,  to  quote  also  the 
following:  — 

"  I  could  not  bear  to  renounce  the  happiness 
of  believing  in  a  future  life;  indeed,  I  could  say, 
with  Lorenzo  di  Medici,  that  they  are  dead  even 
for  this  life  who  hope  for  no  other;  but  such  unin- 
telligible matters  lie  too  far  away  to  be  an  object 
of  daily  reflection  and  confusing  speculation.  And 


NOTES  57 

further,  if  a  man  believes  in  survival,  let  him  be 
happy  in  silence ;  he  has  no  occasion  to  make  a  fuss 
about  it.  I  observed,  in  connection  with  Tiedge's 
Urania,  that  Saints  like  nobles  are  a  kind  of  Aris- 
tocracy .  I  found  silly  women  who  gave  themselves 
airs  because,  with  Tiedge,  they  believed  in  immor- 
tality ;  and  I  had  to  undergo  a  very  obscure  cross- 
examination  on  the  subject.  However  I  annoyed 
them  by  saying:  •!  have  no  objection  to  being 
blessed  with  another  life  after  this  one  is  over;  only 
I  do  hope  I  shan't  meet  there  any  one  who  believed 
in  it  here.  Otherwise  I  shall  have  a  most  unpleas- 
ant time.  The  saints  will  all  flock  round  me  and 
say:  **  Well,  were  n't  we  right?  Did  n't  we  tell 
you  so?  Isn't  it  just  as  we  said?"  And  so  one 
would  be  bored  even  in  heaven! '  " 

*'  A  preoccupation  with  ideas  of  immortality  is 
for  the  leisured  classes,  and  for  women  who  have 
nothing  to  do,  A  sensible  man,  who  wants  to  be 
something  decent  here,  and  so  has  to  struggle,  fight, 
and  work,  leaves  the  fliture  life  in  peace  and  is 
active  and  useful  in  this  one.  Besides,  thoughts 
about  immortality  are  for  people  who  have  n't 


58  NOTES 

come  ofF  very  well  in  the  way  of  happiness  here; 
and  I  imagine  that  if  the  good  Tiedge  had  had 
better  fortune  he  would  have  had  better  thoughts." 

Note  J',  page  ii.  Science  and  Immortality, 
page  36. 

Note  6,  page  12.  See  his  book  The  Nature 
of  Man. 

Note  7,  page  75.  Cf.  Tennyson' s  Tit  bonus :  — 
*'  I  ask'd  thee,  *  Give  me  immortality.* 

Then  didst  thou  grant  mine  asking  with  a  smile. 

Like  wealthy  men  who  care  not  how  they  give. 

But  thy  strong  Hours  indignant  work'd  their 
wills. 

And  beat  me  down  and  marr'd  and  wasted 
me. 

And  tho'  they  could  end  me,  left  me  maim'd 

To  dwell  in  presence  of  immortal  youth. 

Immortal  age  beside  immortal  youth. 

And  all  I  was  in  ashes." 

Note  8,  page  18.  "  Thus  spake  Zarathustra," 
Eng.  Trans,  by  A.  Tille,  Works,  vol.  viii, 
page  341. 

Note  g,  page  23.  See  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall 


NOTES  59 

of  the  Roman  Empire ^  vol.  ii,  page  27  of  Bury's 
edition.   The  passage  is  as  follows:  — 

**  How  shall  I  admire,  how  laugh,  how  rejoice, 
how  exult,  when  I  behold  so  many  proud  mon- 
archs  and  fancied  gods  groaning  in  the  lowest 
abyss  of  darkness;  so  many  magistrates,  who  per- 
secuted in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  liquefying  in 
fiercer  fires  than  they  ever  kindled  against  the 
Christians;  so  many  sage  philosophers  blushing  in 
red-hot  flames,  with  their  deluded  scholars;  so 
many  celebrated  poets  trembling  before  the  tribunal 
not  of  Minos,  but  of  Christ;  so  many  tragedians, 
more  tuneful  in  the  expression  of  their  own  suffer- 
ings; so  many  dancers — "  But  here  Gibbon  cuts 
short  the  quotation,  and  there  is  no  reason  for  me 
to  prolong  it. 

Note  10,  page  24.  See  Latter-day  Pamphlets. 
No.  2.    Model  Prisons. 

' '  And  so  you  take  criminal  caitiffs,  murderers, 
and  the  like,  and  hang  them  on  gibbets  *  for  an 
example  to  deter  others. '  Whereupon  arise  friends 
of  humanity,  and  object.  With  very  great  reason, 
as  I  consider,  ifyour  hypothesis  be  correct.   What 


6o  NOTES 

right  have  you  to  hang  any  poor  creature  *  for  an 
example  '  ?  He  can  turn  round  upon  you  and  say, 
'Why  make  an  "example"  of  me,  a  merely 
ill-situated,  pitiable  man?  Have  you  no  more  re- 
spect for  misfortune  ?  Misfortune,  I  have  been  told, 
is  sacred.  And  yet  you  hang  me,  now  I  am  fallen 
into  your  hands;  choke  the  life  out  of  me,  for  an 
example!  Again  I  ask.  Why  make  an  example 
of  me,  for  your  own  convenience  alone? '  —  All 
*  revenge  '  being  out  of  the  question,  it  seems  to  me 
the  caitiff  is  unanswerable;  and  he  and  the  philan- 
thropic platforms  have  the  logic  all  on  their  side. 
"  The  one  answer  to  him  is:  *  Caitiff,  we  hate 
thee;  and  discern  for  some  six  thousand  years  now, 
that  we  are  called  upon  by  the  whole  Universe 
to  do  it.  Not  with  a  diabolic,  but  with  a  divine 
hatred.  God  himself,  we  have  always  understood, 
'•hates  sin,"  with  a  most  authentic,  celestial, 
and  eternal  hatred.  A  hatred,  a  hostility  inexor- 
able, unappeasable,  which  blasts  the  scoundrel, 
and  all  scoundrels  ultimately,  into  black  annihila- 
tion and  disappearance  from  the  sum  of  things. 
The  path  of  it  as  the  path  of  a  flaming  sword:  he 


NOTES  6i 

that  has  eyes  may  see  it,  walking  inexorable,  di- 
vinely beautiful  and  divinely  terrible,  through  the 
chaotic  gulf  of  Human  History,  and  everywhere 
burning,  as  with  unquenchable  fire,  the  false  and 
death-worthy  from  the  true  and  life-worthy;  mak- 
ing all  Human  History,  and  the  Biography  of 
every  man,  a  God's  Cosmos  in  place  of  a  Devil's 
Chaos.  So  is  it,  in  the  end;  even  so,  to  every 
man  who  is  a  man,  and  not  a  mutinous  beast,  and 
has  eyes  to  see.  To  thee,  caitiff,  these  things  were 
and  are,  quite  incredible;  to  us  they  are  too  awfully 
certain,  —  the  Eternal  Law  of  this  Universe, 
whether  thou  and  others  will  believe  it  or  disbe- 
lieve. We,  not  to  be  partakers  in  thy  destructive 
adventure  of  defying  God  and  all  the  Universe, 
dare  not  allow  thee  to  continue  longer  among  us. 
As  a  palpable  deserter  from  the  ranks  where  all 
men,  at  their  eternal  peril,  are  bound  to  be:  pal- 
pable deserter,  taken  with  the  red  hand  fighting 
thus  against  the  whole  Universe  and  its  Laws,  we 
—  send  thee  back  into  the  whole  Universe,  sol- 
emnly expel  thee  from  our  community;  and  will 
in  the  name  of  God,  not  with  joy  and  exultation. 


62  NOTES 

but  with  sorrow  stern  as  thy  own,  hang  thee  on 
Wednesday  next,  and  so  end.'  " 

Note  II,  page  ^i.  Traherne.  Centuries  of 
Meditation,  page  3. 

Note  12,  page  j6.  See  e.  g.  his  poems.  Earth 
Man  and  A  Faith  on  Trial. 

Note  I  J,  page  jp.  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion, 
page  127, 

Note  14,  page  48.  See  Proceedings  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research,  Parts  53,  55,  57. 
Maclehose  &  Co.,  Glasgow.  These  volumes  con- 
tain the  record  of  a  series  of  automatic  writings 
purporting  to  be  inspired  by  certain  well-known 
men  recently  deceased.  That  they  purport  to  be  so 
inspired  is,  of  course,  in  itself,  no  evidence  that 
they  are  so.  But  the  writings  involve  very  curious 
and  complicated  correspondences  between  mes- 
sages given  independently  to  different  automatists 
in  different  places.  Such  correspondences  are 
conceivably  explicable  by  a  great  extension  of  the 
hypothesis  of  telepathy;  but  there  is  an  apparent 
deliberate  effort  to  render  that  explanation  as  lit- 
tle plausible  as  possible.   Altogether  the  writings 


NOTES  63 

present  a  very  difficult  and  interesting  problem 
in  evidence  as  to  which  it  would  probably  be  pre- 
mature at  present  to  come  to  any  final  conclusion. 
But  the  hypothesis  that  the  messages  do  really  pro- 
ceed from  the  persons  from  whom  they  profess  to 
proceed  must,  I  think,  be  seriously  considered. 

Note  75,  page  48.  See  a  paper  by  Dr.  Schiller 
(Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
Part  49)  discussing  the  answers  obtained  to  a 
"Questionnaire"  regarding  human  sentiment  as 
to  a  fiiture  life,  which  was  undertaken  a  few  years 
ago  by  Dr.  Richard  Hodgson  and  the  American 
Branch  of  the  S.  P.  R. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


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